


tastes like strawberries on a summer evening (sounds just like a song)

by Japery



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: 2017-2018 NHL Season, Accidental Voyeurism, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Colorblindness, M/M, Mutual Masturbation, Mutual Pining, Sense Sharing, Soul Bond, idiots to lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-26 12:07:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22716733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Japery/pseuds/Japery
Summary: "I'm colorblind." JT admits quietly, his voice half muffled by the plastic.Josty's brow furrows, like he's trying to figure out the joke. “Dude, I’m colorblind.” He says, almost hesitant about it. “Are you making fun of me again or--”“No.” JT cuts in, a little more harshly than he intends. “You’re colorblind. So I’m colorblind.”
Relationships: J. T. Compher/Tyson Jost, Tyson Barrie/Nathan MacKinnon
Comments: 32
Kudos: 329
Collections: 2 Hots: #boysarehot Avs Valentines 2020 fic challenge





	tastes like strawberries on a summer evening (sounds just like a song)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [author_abz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/author_abz/gifts).
  * In response to a prompt by [author_abz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/author_abz/pseuds/author_abz) in the [2hots](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/2hots) collection. 

> **Prompt:**
> 
> Soulmate au!
> 
> or any other kind of magical realism au (wish baby? Red string of fate? Colorblind until they meet (or not)?) but preferably one that involves a soul bond (except the flower petal one bc I really just don’t get it)
> 
> customize to your heart’s content
> 
> \---
> 
> i don't claim to know and mean no harm to the people represented in this fic, if you found this by googling yourself or anyone you know, i'd advise you to click right on out of here.
> 
> i wrote this because i've always wanted to parse what josty's being colorblind would mean with the concept of seeing colors once you meet your soulmate, and as always, wrote an entire universe about it. i wrote a lot of this on my dataless phone on a cruise ship in the bahamas, but it's as much of a love letter to the 17-18 rookie house (p o u r o n e o u t) and colorado avalanche as i could muster in those circumstances. i took some creative license with the timeline: josty doesn't get get grandpa jim's ukelele until year two of rookie house, and there's some stuff i missed, definitely, and at no point in this fic do they manage to actually play hockey, but rest assured that they do that
> 
> thanks to abby for the prompt, the gc for organizing and cheering on this challenge, and erica for helping me figure out three different iterations of this fic before i finally settled on this one and betaing it for me, as well as harry styles' "watermelon sugar" for the title.

He's only been here for a few days, but the Avs locker room is probably the saddest JT's ever been in, and he was drafted by Buffalo. 

Everyone just looks run into the ground, half checked out and counting the days until the season ended. The whole place is like a snapshot left overexposed and bleeding out whatever spark of color Gabe's steely smile or Barrie's stalwart attempts at chirping that smile can muster--flooded by the harsh light of day every time Dutchy's retreating back slipped past a sea of glares so sharp they could cut glass as he barricaded himself in the player's room. 

Nate is a smoldering flame, turning over on the coals, and JT can never tell when he's liable to blaze hot enough to burn--only relenting to Barrie poking away at him merrily with a courage that only a soulmate can.

And then Jost shows up.

JT hears a soft thump of a duffel bag being set down on the bench next to him as Tyson Jost slouches into view, taking up the space around his stall.

"Sup, bud. Guess we're neighbors, huh?" Jost greets him. He looks like he's trying to figure out what to do with his hands as he talks, until he settles on a peace sign.

JT looks him over, toe to tip. Jost is all tight curls and broad angles. He holds himself with his chest puffed out just a little, trying to tamp down the nervousness that has only barely managed to subside in JT. Jost looks at him like he's a diagram in a textbook, like he's trying to figure out where all the arrows go, eyes ficking over to JT's hair.

"Don't ask me for sugar." JT concludes, with the slightest of nods.

Jost blinks, and smiles at him, bright and buoyant, unweighted by the anchor of the worst season in franchise history.

Later, during practice, Jost--now Josty, uncreatively christened--hipchecks him gently during practice.

His face is ruddy red to the tips of his ears, from either excitement or exertion. "Your hair--you're ginger, right? It's red?"

JT furrows his brow, laying back against the boards. No one's ever asked him that before. 'Yeah," he answers with a hesitant shrug. "Kind of orange, I guess." JT admits, bracing himself for a chirp that never comes.

"Cool." Josty says instead, darting his tongue over his teeth. He looks pleased with himself, like he'd finally puzzled out a question on a test in a way that made sense to him.

"Cool." JT echoes, raising an eyebrow at him.

"I'm colorblind, dude." Josty tells him, in way of explanation. "Your hair looks--I've never really seen that shade before. I thought you might be ginger."

JT snorts softly, tucking in some stray hairs under the rim of his helmet. "Nothing gets past you, huh?" He mutters.

Josty beams at him, still pleased as punch. "Caught ya." He says, low and familiar, and JT thinks, suddenly, that this locker room might not be so bad.

//

It's Biggy who suggests they all move in together.

Chris Bigras is as big and as loud as his nickname implies, and he's been up and down enough that when Bedsy calls him, JT, Josty, and the Harvard boy, Kerfoot, all in and tells them they've gotta find somewhere to live he's the only one with the confidence to swoop his arms around them all and pull them into a crushing hug.

JT has long gotten used to Biggy's hugs, and Josty just looks like he's just along for the ride, but Kerf yelps as Biggy scoops him up, stumbling backwards and knocking into JT's shoulder. JT shoves him with his own shoulder, and they all clamber over each other in a pile right outside of Bedsy's office.

He catches Josty's eye over Kerfoot's elbow, tracking the pink of his blush as it travels up to his ears, and when he laughs, JT does too.

They get pizza together afterwards and collectively agree to lie about it to their diet plans.

"Can we get Cinnastix?" JT asks, finishing off the crust Josty had silently passed over to him and finding it lacking.

"No." Kerf says, and he orders them anyway.

"We should cohabitate." Biggy says suddenly, through a mouthful of pepperoni he had picked off the sides of everyone's plates and crammed into his mouth.

"Cohabitate?" Kerf echoes.

"Live together," Biggy clarifies, laughing around his pepperoni feast. "Do they not teach you vocabulary at that safety school you went to or--"

"I went to Harvard!" Kerf bristles, and Biggy smiles at him companionably.

"See, I didn't go to any fancy schools. Y'all should live with someone earthly." The 'y'all' slides smoothly off his tongue, like all his time in San Antonio rubbed off on him.

"Eating dirt doesn't make you earthly, dumbass." JT chirps under his breath. Josty catches it, and guffaws into his Cinnastix.

They find a house in Boulder that Kerf's uncle's friend wants to unload, a three story joint so much nicer than any dorm JT had ever lived in.

JT muscles his way shoulder to shoulder with Josty in the doorframe, looking out at the big, empty house and offers him a small, wan smile. Biggy crows as he crosses the threshold, that this house was theirs, and the NHL would be next. Biggy's so loud he echoes through every room, and JT almost believes him.

//

JT doesn't believe in luck, or superstitions, or any of that bullshit. Once, Josty had been getting too excited about his fortune cookie--some cloying platitude about fate's paths intertwining that Josty had been convinced meant he was going to run into his soulmate grabbing milk at the grocery store--and JT took his own and ate it whole, paper and all, right in front of him. Still, even he has to admit that he and Josty getting hurt at the same time sucks ass in a cosmic sort of way.

Not the least of which because, with Kerf and Biggy actually going off and playing games and making something of their lives, Josty takes to following him around like some kind of sad little curly haired puppy with a lower body injury, and sometimes JT would prefer to be a sad sack of shit with a janked up thumb that isn't even useful for shoving up his own ass, because that would at least feel pretty good, alone, actually.

“You know, I can get wood with one hand just fine.” Josty chirps, staring at JT trying and failing to hack at and miss one of the trees around Fatal, having a hell of a time trying to move and press the buttons he needs at the same time. 

JT tears his gaze away from the game leveling Josty with his iciest stare. “I’ll show you what I can do with one hand,” He threatens, just when someone named WeedlordVegeta69 snipes him into spectator mode. Josty makes a noise, and falls off the chair. JT throws his controller towards the wall the thunk only barely satisfying as he has to scramble to stop watching WeedlordVegeta69 floss over his corpse.

“Does this mean we can stop playing Fortnite?” Josty asks, all curls peeking out from behind the armchair, hands pressed into the hardwood.

JT, suddenly hot and irritated, bunches his good hand into a fist to chase away a weird cooling in his fingertips and waves it dismissively, slumping up against the edge of the couch. 

Josty bounds up in a way that probably isn’t the best for his injury, availing himself of Kerf’s meticulously packed game closet. He dumps a bunch of Kerf’s weird nerdy dice games on the couch, and leaves JT to puzzle out which of them could conceivably be done with two players without forcing JT to run his head straight through the drywall while he goes to get snacks from his kitchen. 

JT is staring at the instructions of something called Rivals of Catan--mentally taking notes to completely roast Kerf for being the nerdiest fucking person to ever exist; getting a spinoff two player version of a game about currency management like Jesus T. Kirk--when he hears Josty come back up the stairs. He’s cradling a newly opened bucket labeled cinnamon pretzels, and has a couple hanging out of his mouth. 

JT’s mouth tangs with the phantom taste of cinnamon and salt. He holds his hand out, bringing his fingers in for Josty to drop some in his palm. Their fingertips brush together, cool to the touch. “Were you hiding these from me?” JT questions, trying not to look too greedy as he picks at the pretzels.” 

“Actually, I made these for--” Josty cuts himself off, watching as JT tries one, the salt stinging pleasantly over his lips. It tastes exactly as he’d imagined it a moment ago, except layered with an echo of its own flavor that JT didn’t think could come out of a pretzel.

“You made these?” JT repeats, raising an eyebrow. He looks at Josty, cinnamon sugar stained down the front of his shirt. “No fucking way.” He snorts, and Josty ducks his head. 

“My grandma’s recipe helped.” He admits, and JT chuckles. 

“Yeah, that makes more sense.” JT mutters, and waves a hand imperiously over the open game board. “Let’s play this nerd game, Jost.” Josty’s smile flickers, confused, for just long enough for JT to shove a pretzel in his mouth.

//

Later, JT wakes up from a painkiller nap to a godawful noise, thrumming from the pads of his fingertips up to the back of his neck. He springs out of bed, pushing himself up by the one hand to search for the source of it. The sound feels like it’s coming from under his skin, bursting through every few seconds like a geyser of discordant noise. 

He finds it coming from, where else, the basement, and trudges down without even bothering to put a shirt on. Josty is perched on the edge of the kitchen counter, in nothing but his boxers, with a ukelele perched on his hip. His laptop is in front of him, playing some song JT can’t quite place. The low light pools playfully over his ribs, highlighting the crease where his waistband dips slightly too low over his thigh. Josty plays another errant chord, and JT’s mouth twitches from a thin line. 

“Hey.” JT says, leaning down from the doorway, the edge seeping out from under his voice.

“Sup.” Josty says lowly, raising two fingers in greeting.

“Did you sneak a cat in here, and does it hate you?”

Josty blinks up at him, all big, oblivious brown eyes, eyes trained over the spackled freckles on JT’s shoulder. It’s a little infuriating.

“Learning chords, bud.” Josty finally says, thumbing towards the laptop. JT realizes it’s playing a ukelele tutorial of Justin Bieber’s “Baby,” which is about the most on-brand choice Josty could’ve made here. 

“Who was even dumb enough to give an instrument?” JT grumbles as he comes down the stairs, Josty staring up at him the whole way. 

Josty swallows, and gives him a slight smile. “It’s my grandpa’s.” He says proudly. 

“The one who cries.” JT deadpans. Josty nods. JT rolls his eyes, and runs a hand through his hair. Josty blinks, shifting the ukelele in his lap, and JT takes the opportunity to lean over and pluck one of his strings.

The note sounds sweet, vibrating under his fingers, but there’s something else there too, warmer than it should be. “Shut up, or I’ll shut you up.” He says, calmly, and Josty squeaks as he nods, leaning further back against the counter. The heat around them is getting overwhelming, pools low around JT’s stomach, and he realizes how close they are. 

JT tears away, stepping back from Josty and back towards the stairs, running his hands over his stomach like he’s smoothing a shirt that isn’t there. “Just, just be quieter.” He mumbles, and rushes out of the room. 

As he passes his way back to his bedroom, he sees Biggy poking his head out from the upstairs landing. His eyes are bleary, and he’s got a monkey emoji sleep mask around his neck. “Whassa matter?” He asks. 

JT waves him off. “Jost doesn’t know when he should be practicing that dumb ukelele.” He says wearily, and Biggy frowns. 

“I only heard you flipping your shit about it, bro.” Biggy tells him. JT flips him off, and stomps back into his room. Maybe it would’ve been worth it to share the upstairs rooms if it meant he didn’t have to hear Josty trying to play an instrument. 

The sound is gone, but JT still can’t sleep, because he’s suddenly incredibly fucking horny. 

He’s overwhelmed with it, stumbling into his bed is, running his good hand aimlessly over his chest to lay over his stomach. He’s impossibly warm, even as phantom shivers ghost over his thighs. He kicks off his sweatpants, letting them pool around his ankles rather than bothering with dealing with his hand to take them off as he arches backwards into his mattress. 

JT roots around his bedside table for his lube and squeezes a stupid amount onto his stomach and thighs in an effort to coat his hardening cock. He finally wraps his hand around it, tightening as much as he can with his off hand as he thrusts up into the slick warmth of his hand. 

Absently, he tries to focus his feelings, and his mind supplies an image of Josty, bent back over his kitchen counter, all tight planes and bare skin and soft smile--tries to focus them away from his annoying, inconsiderate roommate.

He tries thinking about a time his ex-girlfriend gave him head, the stain of her lipstick pressing itself over his shaft as she looked up at him--and when that doesn’t work, he starts thinking about counting the freckles on Gabe’s back as he saunters through the locker room, towel slung too low. 

Instead, his mind wanders back to Josty. He thinks about him splayed over his bedspread, right below him, one hand fisted around his cock, the other sucking on his own fingers to stifle the sounds. He imagines Josty trailing those spit soaked fingers down to his hole, rubbing careful circles with his thumb to tease himself open. It’s so vivid, JT can feel it himself, can feel the stutter of Josty easing his fingers into himself, rutting against them. He can feel the scratchy texture of his blanket digging into his shoulder blades as he arches his hips up, the tight, hot vicegrip of his hand. He can hear the tiny groans Josty tries to bite down into his pillow, the starchy taste of cotton and sweat seeping into his teeth. He can feel as Josty shudders, spilling come over his fist, and JT feels himself finish with his vision, splattering come up to paint his heaving chest. 

JT’s never had a jack off session quite so good, a fantasy quite so real before. He blames it on Josty waking him up in the middle of his REM cycle, wipes himself off haphazardly, and falls back asleep, content. 

//

Weird shit keeps happening. Granted, it’s kind of a weird time. Dutchy gets traded in the middle of a game, throwing everyone off their rhythm, and JT still kind of expects him to pop up in the locker room while he and Josty are having a tape ball fight and tell them off for flirting or something because he can’t process human affection for any purpose of getting married and having sex with the lights off every two weeks to honor God. Sammy shows up, sleepy and French, and they all go to Sweden to disappoint their captain in front of an entire country. He lets Josty fall asleep on him on the plane there and back, and from there it becomes sort of a habit. And if JT starts letting him do the same thing on the couch while they watch Netflix every few nights once Biggy gets sent down and the house suddenly starts feeling emptier for it, then neither of them are going to mention it. 

He doesn’t tell Josty he jacked off about him, because he’s a gentleman, and admitting to jerking it over a teammate is money on the board that he’s already gotta pay because of his captain, and he can’t afford another one on an ELC. He still jacks off to thoughts of Josty like, all the time now, because it works better than risking his laptop on some twink porn sites trying to find something that’ll get him going just as much--and he doubts he’s really gonna find someone with curly enough hair.

Still, they keep spending time together, and JT keeps feeling inconvenient things. 

They go to the Meet the Team party together, as invalids, and help each other stumble around so they don’t fall right off of the Top Golf platform, and Josty’s jacket has this fresh, woodsy smell that worms its way into JT’s sinuses and don’t seem to disappear after he’s gone, until JT throws the jacket into the backseat of the car on the way home. 

At the Mile High Dreams Gala JT gets drunker than he really thought he would on cheap bubbly, hiding Josty behind his back as he’s the one that sneaks them from the table and downs them like shots. Somehow, Josty ends up sidling up to him while he’s sampling the dessert table, and JT ends up spoon feeding him some lemon thing, and the way Josty giggles and falls apart as JT presses the spoon into his mouth makes him feel like he can still taste it, the lemon sweet in the side of his mouth like it wasn’t when he’d tried it earlier. Somehow, that ends up on camera, and he has to bribe the social media team into doing some other embarrassing bits to keeping it confined to Snapchat. 

In the back of his mind, JT starts thinking--but he always shakes it off, because annoyingly good jack off material or not, there’s no way it could be that.

And then comes Brutes’ Christmas party. 

Josty harangues JT into an ugly sweater from Target, and spends all the way up the driveway trying to convince Kerf to wear one too. 

“C’mon, everyone’s going to be wearing one! You’re gonna be the odd man out, eh?” Josty pitches, as JT tries to count the number of gaudy spots on Josty’s monstrosity of a sweater. 

“It’s our first big team party, we should look professional.” Kerf reasons, smoothing down his crisp, muted looking alabaster sweater.

“You look like a fucking yuppie.” JT chimes in, and Kerf shoots him a scandalized look. 

“I think it’s pronounced Youppi.” Josty says. “Anyway, I know you are one, dude, but for like one night--” Josty chides, when the door opens, and Nathan MacKinnon with a Santa hat with a bell on it bears down on them with a bucket full of candy canes like he’s waiting for Yuletide trick or treaters. 

“Sup guys, Merry--” Nate starts. 

A voice calls out from past the hallway, clearly Barrie already going far on the festive drinks. “Say the thing, Nathan! Like we practiced!” 

Nate sighs deeply, and adjusts his hat. It jangles sadly. “Welcome to Chez Barrie, where the Christmas is Merry.” He says, deadpan. His face twitches, and his bell jangles. “God, this doesn’t even rhyme, babe!” He yells back down the hallway. 

“Yes it does, we’re not going through this again, babe!” 

Nate rolls his eyes, half too fond to really be mad, and finally takes a look at the assembled rookies, looking them over for approval. When he gets to Kerf, his eyes widen, and he lowers his voice to a stage whisper. 

“Why the hell did you show up looking like a fucking yuppie?” Nate asks harshly, poking Kerf in the chest with one finger. JT feels vindicated. Josty looks like he’s about to correct him on the pronunciation, but JT elbows him to shut him up. 

“You know what he’s like!” Nate continues, rubbing the space inbetween his nose and his forehead with his thumb and his forefinger. He jangles ominously as he steps closer to Kerf, who squeaks. “Now I have to save you. Now I have to save the rookie because I want to get laid tonight, and not have to deal with his passive aggressive grumbling over the fact that he planned out this bomb fucking party that got ruined by one rookie not knowing how Christmas parties work!” 

“I thought it’d be professiona--” Kerf offers, and Nate literally growls at him. 

“You’re a hockey player, not a software analyst.” Nate groans, and points to JT and Josty. “The two of you get inside and run interference with Tys.” He points to Kerf. “You stay here and I’ll find you something to wear. I’m gonna have to give you one of his sweaters, and I hope you’ll be happy knowing I probably fucked him in it.” 

Nate disappears, jangling down the hallway, leaving them stunned on the front porch. 

“Pretty gutty, bud.” JT says, trying to stifle his snickers in his sweater. 

“I really think it’s pronounced Youppi.” Josty says again, as sympathetically as he can. 

Kerf just stares miserably at his hands. 

So, the two of them get relegated to tending to Barrie, who is luxuriating on a lounger in a Christmas onesie, watching EJ muscle his way through battle karaoke against Mikko and eating an entire cheese plate by himself. 

“Bon Christmas, rooks,” Barrie says, holding his injured hand out imperiously like he expects them to kiss it. JT steals one of his cheese slices. 

Barrie ignores it in favor of glancing over to where Nate’s hulking sweatered form had disappeared. “What was Dogg mad about?” He asks. 

“He wasn’t mad.” Josty lies. Barrie snorts. 

“He’s my soulmate. I know when he’s mad just as much as I know when he SNEAK EATS MY FRESHLY BAKED HOLIDAY COOKIES LIKE A DIRTY THIEF!” Barrie’s yell carries through the party and all the way upstairs, where they hear a thump and a surprised jangle. 

“Kerf didn’t wear the right sweater.” JT tells him. Josty shoots him a look, and he shrugs. 

“What was he dressed like, then?”

“Like a fucking nerd.” JT says honestly. 

Barrie rolls his eyes, and brings his good hand up in the air, pressing the tips of his fingers together. “Don’t you dare give him the singing reindeer sweater, Dogg!” He yells towards the stairs. “Get him the Lean-mas sweater!” He twists his thumb over his palm. “Yes, that one! I’m gonna make him do the song!” 

“Your yelling is messing up my solo, you fucking mutant!” EJ roars from the other side of the room. Mikko laughs, clearly pleased. 

“Your voice was already doing that for you, you overgrown Lisa Frank poster!” Barrie snaps back, and throws some of his cheese in EJ’s general direction. He motions at JT and Josty to help, and by the time Kerf is back and clothed, half the team is covered in charcuterie and arguing over whether there actually is a solo in Ginuwine’s “Pony.” 

Josty gets so drunk he settles across JT’s lap after the group picture, and JT is too drunk and lazy to shove him off after a couple of half-hearted attempts. On the lounger across from them, the other Tyson is doing the same thing Nate, his soulmate careful not to jostle his injured hand as he presses soft kisses against the side of his head. 

“That’d be so nice, eh?” Josty mumbles, clearly halfway there to drifting off to sleep. His sweater is soft against JT’s arms, his weight comfortable and warm. 

“Do I not cuddle you enough, asshole?” JT snipes, poising to push Josty off of him. “Go find Kerf if you’re that ungrateful.” 

“No, I mean--” Josty colors a little, a tries to find the words. “Having a soulmate, feeling what someone else feels. That’d be nice.” JT opens his mouth to say something about how he’s been feeling plenty, but he stops it in his throat, too heavy, too much to say out loud. 

“I’ve never felt anything like that.” Josty tells him instead. 

“Oh, okay.” JT says.

Oh. Okay. So maybe not, then.

//

He and Josty get paired together to do a Break the Ice event, and normally JT would be fine with it. He likes these things. Children aren’t generally as annoying to him as their grown-up counterparts, and it’s easier to make them smile. And for the most part, it goes well. 

Josty bumps his shoulder as they head onto the ice, smiles at him under his eyelashes. “Let’s show ‘em a good time, eh?” He says, obnoxiously Canadian, and something twists in JT’s chest. 

JT sticks to his side of the rink and his children, showing them drills and tugging them around in the chair, but out of the corner of his eye or just barely out of earshot there’s always Josty, making a kid laugh or dancing to whatever dumb song they’re playing with them. 

They get all the kids together to ask questions, and one of them asks if they’re friends. 

“Oh yeah,” Josty says, laugh bright and cheery, true as anything. “Best fr--” He says again, and that thing in his chest drops low and vicious. 

“We’re not friends.” He says, short and clipped. Josty stares at him, wide-eyed, and one of the kids coughs. “I don’t even know the guy.” JT continues, trying to play it as a joke, and the kids titter, and so does Josty, but there’s something about it that seems distant, and strained.   
“We all right?” JT asks, as they’re on their way home, trying to brush Josty’s shoulder with his knuckles. 

Josty leans back so JT’s fingers barely graze air, and takes a deep breath through his nostrils. “Yeah, we’re fine, bud. Let’s just get home.” He says, and JT doesn't know what else to say, so he leaves it at that.

//

JT wakes up one morning, and everything seems...off.

He's had the same alarm clock since he started UMich, a little analog clock from the team store his dad picked him up before his first semester so he could have an excuse to still know how to read clocks or something. He knows it better than almost anything, waking up to it every morning he's home. It has a little red button in the middle for the seconds, and a light green for the hours, with the minute hand classic Wolverine gold. JT blinks at it as the alarm goes off for morning skate and it's...it's a little hard to read. He tries to rub the sleep out of his eyes, but it's the same.

JT pulls himself out of bed and after he showers he takes a look at himself in the mirror. There's something about his hair. It looks a little like it does late into the summer, when he spends too much time outside, but it's still winter and his hair had long started to darken. 

"Something wrong, Comph?" Kerf asks, looking at him from over his newspaper over breakfast. "You're looking at that strawberry like you've declared it your rival."

JT rolls his eyes. "Okay, Matt Mercer."

"It's not green, is it?" Josty pipes up from where he's flipping pancakes in the kitchen. "I have some trouble telling sometimes."

"It's fine," Kerf says, at the same time as JT says, "Maybe." Kerf levels another look at him.

The strawberry runs off-white, bleeding color at the edges. He picks it up curiously with his fork, and takes a bite. He can feel Josty watching him curiously as juice spills over his lips. It's sweet, tender, and as ripe as it can be.

JT’s stuck in his own head for the rest of the morning, complicated by the fact that it's his turn to drive Josty to the rink.

"Dude, it's green." Josty points at the stoplight. Someone honks behind him.

JT squints at the lights. They all look vaguely yellow. "There's something wrong with them. How the fuck do you know anyway?"

"Green is the bottom one, dummy." Josty reminds him. He’s wearing his own shirsey, and the burgundy of the logo looks faded, more than it would be from the wash. He's never actually wondered how Josty manages to drive colorblind, actually, fairly fine enough for them not to get in an accident. JT frowns, and he goes.

"What do--what do traffic lights look like to you?" JT asks carefully. 

Josty shrugs. "They all kind of look the same, actually." He says, and JT's mouth goes dry. His head starts to spin as he puts it all together, and he has to force himself to pull over, pressing his forehead against the top of the wheel.

"What's going on, JT?" Josty says, voice tinged with worry.

"I'm colorblind." JT admits quietly, his voice half muffled by the plastic.

Josty's brow furrows, like he's trying to figure out the joke. “Dude, I’m colorblind.” He says, almost hesitant about it. “Are you making fun of me again or--” 

“No.” JT cuts in, a little more harshly than he intends. “You’re colorblind. So I’m colorblind.” 

“What?” The heat drains from Josty’s face, and he laughs awkwardly in disbelief. “Like sense sharing? That’s soulmate stuff. Bonding stuff. We’re not--” 

“I’ve been sharing your senses for months, dumbass.” JT says through gritted teeth, and Josty quiets. 

“JT, I’ve…” Josty runs a hand through his hair, trying to find the words. “I told you, I’ve never gotten anything from anyone. You’ve never shared anything with me.” 

JT pushes himself up to look at Josty. Solemn, worried lines etch over his face, so unlike him it hurts. He’s suddenly hit with the urge to kiss them off of him, and so he does. Josty lets out a surprised noise against him. It takes him a second before he starts to kiss back, threading a hand over JT’s shoulders to pull him in and draw JT’s tongue into his mouth. 

It’s a good kiss, as kisses go. It’s warm, and solid, and they both know enough to avoid awkward angles. JT can feel a tingling on his lips that he knows isn’t entirely his own, and he feels smug and satisfied when he draws away. Except, the color of Josty’s shirt is still wrong. 

Josty scrapes his teeth over his bottom lip, and looks up at JT. 

“Well?” JT asks, as though he doesn’t already know the answer. 

“I don’t know what it’s supposed to feel like.” Josty admits. “It was good, I liked it, but--I’m supposed to know, right? I feel like I’d know?” 

“Yeah,” JT breathes out, as the tingling dissipates from his lips. “You’d know.”

//

Things are weird, through morning skate, and the game. Josty isn’t avoiding him, per say, but he’s tiptoeing around like he has no idea what to say, and JT can’t exactly blame him for that. JT is still colorblind, and he’s not used to the differences in the most fundamental things--their jerseys, the right flashes of familiar hair, the crowd around them seems duller, wrung out. JT’s passes don’t connect, his pucks miss the net wide, his faceoffs are jittery and get him kicked out more than once. 

And he knows, he knows that’s not the way that Josty sees them. He knows that Josty has never known any other way to see, that he’s used to this, and he’s managed fine all his life. The universe has just decided to play a cruel joke on him, saddling him with a one-way bond he can’t reciprocate. 

They lose the game, badly, and JT smashes his stick into the trash can on the way to the locker room, leaving an unsatisfying dent. 

As he’s coming out of the showers long after everyone else, Barrie is waiting for him, sitting crosslegged on the bench. “You look like shit.” Brutes says bluntly.

“I’m just copying you, as my mentor.” JT deadpans as he gets himself dressed, and Brutes flips him off. 

“Where’s your better half?” JT asks, scanning the room for Nate, carving a sweet potato in effigy or whatever it was he did after losses, but it appears to be just them. 

“I sent him home with Jost. Tyson Jr. told us a little about what happened. Your bond is stuck?” JT tamps down the rush of annoyance he feels at Josty going to the only functional soulmate couple they have available for help, but he has to admit to himself it was probably the smarter thing to do. 

“I’m getting stuff from him, he’s not getting anything from me.” JT explains, with a shrug. “Obviously something’s broken, probably me. What, do we have to fuck it out?” 

Barrie rolls his eyes, tapping the bench to the side of him to invite JT to sit. After a certain amount of posturing, JT relents. “Neither of you are broken, shut the hell up. That’s just how bonds work, you have to work at them.” 

“I put in my work.” JT grumbles. Anger coils in his chest like a snake, waiting to find prey. “I spend all my time with him, I drive him places, I’m freakin’ colorblind because of him. How much work do I have to do to get him to feel fucking anything? You can come here saying whatever about it all because you and Nate fell on each other’s dicks soulmates from the jump, so sorry if we’re not all as good.” 

Brutes shakes his head, gripping the bottom of the bench carefully as he sways back and forth. “You know I’m not the first person Dogg tried to bond with?” 

JT blinks. “For real?” Looking at Nate and Tyson, they’re solid, the most solid ground JT had ever seen, and JT had assumed that’s how it always had been. 

Tyson nods. “Nate always bonded really easily. He feels so much, so strongly, that when he loves someone it all comes in at once. Kind of like your boy?” Tyson asks rhetorically, but they both know it’s true. 

“Not everyone’s the same way. He’d want so badly to make someone his soulmate, and it wouldn’t work, no matter how much sushi you buy them. You can’t force that shit.” Tyson shrugs, and smiles wanly. “Even I wasn’t exactly a picnic. I joke too much, I didn’t take it seriously at first. It didn’t take all at once. It never does.” 

“So, what’re you saying?” JT asks, the bite seeping out of his voice. “It is me?” 

Tyson shakes his head. “I’m not good at this metaphysical shit but--imagine soulmates like a bridge, and the bridge is the bond. Josty and Nate are people whose bridge is always down, always ready to let people cross. People like me, we like to pretend the bridge is down, and we’re not quite there yet. You, I think--” 

“I need to lower my bridge.” JT concludes. Tyson smiles at him again, brighter this time. 

“How should I know, though? You could always just try fucking him.” 

“That’s plan B.” JT measures. 

//

JT thinks about himself, for a while. He listens to some of Willy’s bullshit mindfulness podcasts, takes some personality quizzes that say he’s an Aries, that he’s choleric, and that’s a Monica. In the end, he decides to call one of his sisters. 

Morgan would probably be a better bet, if he wanted to break things down more methodically, but JT doesn’t quite have the patience for that, so he calls Jesse. 

“Do you think I’m closed off?” JT asks, in lieu of a greeting, and Jesse’s lucky he doesn’t hang up after the solid two minutes of uninterrupted laughter. 

“You’re so fucking repressed I’m surprised walking around the mountains hasn’t made diamonds fall out of your ass, big brother.” Jesse says bluntly. 

“Thanks for the help.” JT scoffs. 

“What is this for, anyway?” Jesse asks. JT hesitates for a moment, but he takes a deep breath, and tells her everything, minus the part about inadvertently jacking off together. 

“Well, shit.” Jesse says, when he’s done. 

“Well, shit.” JT agrees glumly. 

“I think,” Jesse finally says. “I think you must have been mean to him.” 

“What, are you saying I’m mean?” JT asks defensively, and he can hear Jesse’s eye roll from Denver. 

“You’re mean like it’s your job, JT. It’s not your job.” Jesse explains. “Do you remember when I bought that yellow sundress, and you said that it made me look like the lady from Bee Movie, except the lady from Bee Movie could find a man and a bee who both wanted to be with her?” 

“No?” JT says honestly. 

“Well I remember it.” Jesse huffs. “You made me cry, and I didn’t want to wear the dress for months afterwards.” 

“Oh.” JT says, guilt settling in his chest. “I didn’t--I actually like that dress.” He says weakly. 

“I don’t think you actually know how much the things you say can hurt people, JT.” Jesse says, as candidly as she can. “It sounds like this guy likes you a lot, or he wants to like you, and the universe is just screaming out in every way it can to get you to actually listen.”

“Huh.” JT says. 

After getting properly dressed down about his general way of being with his sister, and catching up on how things are going with her school and hockey and everything, JT starts to hear a familiar thrumming of music, gliding out from under his fingers. 

He wanders his way downstairs, to find Josty sitting on the couch, ukelele in hand. 

“Oh, sorry, am I being too loud?” Josty asks, and JT shakes his head, perching himself on the arm of the couch across from him. 

“You finished learning your song?” JT asks. Josty nods slowly, carefully. “Play it for me.” JT tells him. Josty blinks at him once, then twice, then relaxes, smiling as brightly as he can. JT settles into the arm of the couch across from him, and listens to him play. 

// 

JT learns to live with the colorblindness. It’s not always there, disappearing every few mornings, but Josty can’t control sending it the way Nate and Tyson can with any of their senses, and JT stops asking if Josty ever recieves anything from him. He listens to Josty play. He eases up on the chirps, starts aiming to bruise, and never to hurt. They don’t kiss again, even though they want to.

He overhears Lauren talking with the social media people about a segment where they get Josty a pair of those colorblind glasses, and before he knows it, JT’s volunteering to host it. 

He wakes up colorblind the day they’re meant to do it, and JT’s vibrating with so much anticipation that he barely notices as the world flickers around him. Josty only has a vague idea of what’s supposed to happen until he’s got the glasses in front of him, and JT takes a kind of glee in the fact that he doesn’t know. 

JT watches Josty put them on, carefully, slowly, letting himself settle in the colors around him. He watches the way his shoulders tighten, the blush travelling up his collarbone as he looks at the light, and then finally, finally meets eyes with JT. 

“Your hair!” Josty exclaims, in a way that makes JT’s heart skip in his chest. “Your hair looks weird!” 

“It’s just like fire.” Josty breathes out, reverent. And then, and then--

The color floods into JT’s vision. He feels warm, and light, and wonderful, and JT is so, so happy for him--

“Is this what you see?” Josty asks, too quiet for the mics to pick up. “Is this what you feel, when you see?” 

“This is it.” JT says, careful and calm. Josty blushes bright red, and JT wants to kiss that blush right off his face, so as soon as the cameras are gone, he does. 

He kisses him up against the elevator wall in a hotel lobby, and it’s everything he wanted twice over, warm, and real, and theirs.

**Author's Note:**

> and then they have awesome bonded sex all the time and it drives kerf insane 
> 
> peace, check me out on [tumblr](https://samgirard.tumblr.com) or[twitter](https://twitter.com/jpeggings)


End file.
